Predictive neural information

for Proactive Actions

Brain-control daily-life tasks

Vision

of Plan4Act

The vision of Plan4Act is to endow motor-impaired patients with the ability to brain-control daily-life tasks – like making coffee – and achieve this by directly controlling ambient assisted living environments.
Our Plan4Act partner labs include experts from robotics, computational neuroscience, and assistive technology engineering, creating an exciting interdisciplinary setting with a neuroscience focus.

Results

RESEARCH TOPIC: Neural Recording

Different areas of the brain are involved in planning future movements. We register detailed neural planning or predictive activity while monkeys perform instructed sequences of actions in a Smart Cage environment. As the animal moves around freely, we
wirelessly transmit neural signals corresponding to the animal’s plans and actions. We extract animal’s plans and actions. We
extract signatures of proactive action planning from behaviour and brain activity.

Deliverable D1.1 Wireless neural recordings

Deliverable D1.2 Report on behavioral testing and status of recording with SmartCage action sequence planning for Test 1

Deliverable D1.3 Report on neural encoding of complex action sequences in SmartCage for Test 2 and update on Test 1

RESEARCH TOPIC: Neural Modeling

The analysis of the data from neural recordings as well as the development of the adaptive neural controller are supported by a
new theoretical model. This theoretical model links the formation and execution of complex action sequences with the underlying
neuronal and synaptic dynamics enabling the extrapolation of new, synthetic data given various simulated scenarios.

Deliverable D2.1 Neural network model encoding sequences by clustered connectivity

Deliverable D2.2 Report on neural network model using the sequential structure to predict the present sequence

Deliverable D2.3 Report on neural network model enabling the prediction of complex planned sequences of actions

Deliverable D2.4 Report on neural network model which predicts distractorrobustly the planned sequence of actions

RESEARCH TOPIC: Generic FPGA-based adaptive neural controller

The developed controller will directly interface to the neuralrecording system and the smart house system. It will process
recorded sequence-predicting neural activity, predict the upcoming sequence of actions, and generate the corresponding
complex action sequences to manipulate the smart house.

Deliverable D3.1 Report on generic reduced control units for complex action sequence formation

Deliverable D3.2 Report on the adaptable network controller for complex action sequence generation and smart house control

Deliverable D3.3 Final report on the hardware controller and integration into the demonstrator for proactive neural information‑based smart house control

News & Events

Final Workshop Series ‘Neural Control: From Data to Machines’

Plan4Act – Predictive Neural Information for Proactive Actions: From Monkey Brain to SmartHouse Control Project Abstract:Planning and mental simulation of actions and outcomes are a major cognitive trait of humans. We predict action consequences and perform goal-directed actions in proactive, forward-looking ways. By contrast, systems that lack predictive planning are reactive and dominated by reflex-like, […]

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Vitual Consortium Meeting, July 15th, 2020

Plan4act consortium organizes its second 2020 consortium meeting virtually due to COVID-19 by July 15th. The aim of the meeting is to plan the work to carry out during last half year of the project.

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The 5th RSU National and International Research Conference on Science and Technology, Social Sciences, and Humanities 2020, Thailand.

Last May 2020, took place The 5th RSU National and International Research Conference on Science and Technology, Social Sciences, and Humanities 2020, Thailand. Conference was held Online due to COVID-19 pandemic. Professor Dr. Poramate Manoonpong, participated as Keynote Speaker of the parallel session organized by College of Biomedical Engineering: ” Human-Robot interaction for Medical robotics”. […]

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Conference on “Advances in Biomedical Engineering and Biomedicine, and their implications in the world of health: the brain”.

The Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) is holding a conference on the advances in Biomedical Engineering and Biomedicine, and their implications in the world of health. Giuseppe Fico, deputy director of the Life Supporting Technologies (LifeSTech) group, gave his contribution in the session “Study of the brain interface”. March 2020. More info here.

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Consortium Meeting in Gottingen. June 26-27th, 2019

Plan4act organizes in Gottingen its second 2019 consortium meeting. The meeting is hosted by UGOE at Gottingen University facilites.

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2019 Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience (CRCNS) Annual Principal Investigators Meeting

Computational and quantitative approaches to the study of the brain and nervous system have been a part of neuroscience since its beginnings as a field. The goal of this meeting was to promote discussions and collaboration between experimental and computational neuroscientists. Meeting took place in Austin, Texas, USA in September 2019. DPZ presented a keynote […]

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Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, 2019 Chicago USA

DPZ assisted last October 2019, to the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting which took place at Chicago, Ilinois, USA. Concretely, Plan4Act project was presented as Introduction to neurophysiology of proactive motor planning in a Symposium. Furthermore, a Satellite Event was organised to talk about “Introduction to wireless technology as needed for SmartCage control”

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SmarterAAL’19 Workshop part of The 2019 Smart World Congress

UPM participated in August 2019 in SmarterAAL’19 workshop, part of the 2019 Smart World congress which this year took place in Leicester, UK. UPM presented in a paper Plan4Act developments from WP4, specifically related to the Web of Things gateway

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Accepted paper for 25th International Conference on Neural Information Processing

The 25th International Conference on Neural Information Processing will be held on December 13-16, 2018 in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Located near Siem Reap in northern Cambodia, Angkor Wat is one of the most important archaeological sites in South-East Asia, the largest religious monument in the world, and listed by UNESCO as a cultural heritage. ICONIP […]

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Consortium Meeting in Denmark. February 14th, 2018

Plan4act organizes in Denmark its first 2018 consortium meeting. The meeting is hosted by SDU at Odense University facilites.

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Europa vor Ort erleben, Büger Europas

Europa vor Ort erleben, Büger Europas, for students of the Berufsschulen Göttingen, hosting Bundestagsvizepräsident Thomas Oppermann, University Göttingen & German Primate Center, Dec 22nd 2017. Fifty vocational students from the Göttingen region visited the German Primate Center and the Physics Institute of the University of Göttingen in December. As part of the project series “Europa vor […]

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Presentation to EIT Health Spain, on 27 November 2017

Plan4Act project was presented to EIT Health Management Board in a demonstration of the 3D Smart Home Living Lab simulation environment with the defined sequence of actions of the experiment at UPM LST premises, at Madrid.Target Audience: Sylvie Bove, former CEO of EIT Health and Marco Pugliese, CLC director of EIT Health Spain

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Consortium Meeting in Madrid. September 7-8th, 2017

Plan4act organizes in Madrid its second 2017 consortium meeting. The meeting is hosted by UPM at University facilites.

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Seminar in Data Science & Engineering Seminar on August 16th and 17th, 2017

Prof. Dr. Poramate Manoonpog presents Pan4Act project at a seminar in Thailandia: “Machine learning for real world applications” in Data science & Engineering seminar of Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology (VISTEC) on August 16-17th, 2017. http://www.vistec.ac.th/News/events-detail.aspx

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Invited talk at “AI and biomedical engineering technology for Thailand 4.0”, in Rangsit, Thailand

Prof. Dr. Poramate Manoonpong, is invited to AI and biomedical engineering technology for Thailand 4.0 Special seminar, in Rangsit University, Bangkok, Thailand on 26.07.2017.

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Publication in Frontiers in Neurorobotics

Goldschmidt, D.; Manoonpong, P.; Dasgupta, S. (2017) A neurocomputational model of goal-directed navigation in insect-inspired embodied agents, Front. Neurorobot. A model of neural mechanisms in a modular closed-loop control—enabling vector navigation in artificial agents is presented. The model consists of a path integration mechanism, reward-modulated global learning, random search, and action selection.

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GTPN Course on Primate Neurobiology Methods

GTPN Course on Primate Neurobiology Methods, Göttingen, Germany, Mar 9th, 2017 From March 16th to 18th 2017 the Eights Primate Neurobiology Meeting was held at the German Primate Center, hosting 136 participants from Europe, Canada and USA to discuss current topics of neuroscientific work with non-human primates. In a workshop participants were introduced to practical aspects […]

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